Friday, October 9, 2015

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Qualcomm is testing its server chips

Posted: 09 Oct 2015 12:21 AM PDT

qualcomQualcomm has been explaining how it is going to get its chips into the server market and is apparently testing its Server Development Platform (SDP)

Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president of Qualcomm demoed its SDP and chatted about the company's progress within the server market.

Apparently Qualcomm is sampling its chips into tier-one data centres using a pre-production 24-core SoC based on the ARMv8-A instruction set and built using advanced FinFet technology.

Qualcomm claims that the use of its chips in server set ups can reduce costs by more than 40 percent.

Qualcomm is “partnering” with Xilinx to create heterogeneous computing solutions for data centres using Qualcomm's server processor and Xilinx FPGAs;

Another of its chums is Mellanox which is designing cost effective platforms for servers and storage using interconnect for data transfer and analysis with Qualcomm's server CPU and Mellanox's Ethernet and InfiniBand interconnect;

Chandrasekher said the release of Qualcomm's evaluation system is a milestone.

"As data centres evolve to support the exponential growth and innovation in data, connectivity and cloud services, Qualcomm Technologies is creating an ecosystem to meet the needs of these next-generation data centres with Qualcomm-based server technologies," he said.

Customers were testing the Server Development Platform and porting their software. Qualcomm was incorporating their feedback into the product offering with the goal of ensuring system and software readiness by the time we are in full production.

 

PC shipments fall further

Posted: 09 Oct 2015 12:19 AM PDT

elepantsIt looks like any hopes that Windows 10's launch might improve PC sales have proven wrong and sales of PCs have dropped further.

Beancounters at market research firm Gartner have added up the numbers and divided by their shoe size and worked out that worldwide shipments of personal computers fell 7.7 percent to 73.7 million units in the third quarter as a stronger dollar made them costlier.

Across town another group of beancounters at IDC said shipments fell 10.8 percent to 71 million units.

Gartner also said the Windows 10 launch in the quarter had minimal impact on shipments as users chose to upgrade to Windows 10 on existing PCs.

Gartner said analysts “see some signs for future stabilization and growth” in the PC market. The firm said in July that it did not expect the global PC market to recover until 2016.

Jay Chou, research manager at IDC Worldwide PC Tracker said that the PC market continues to contract as expected, but he remained optimistic about future shipments.

While it is nice to see that someone is optimistic in these dark, cynical times, it is not as if the PC market could get much worse and it is hard to see what, short of a lightning bolt from Zeus is going to wake it up.

VW blames emissions scandal on software engineers

Posted: 09 Oct 2015 12:18 AM PDT

b299405f6eafe0ac98ce9d9405a17663 (1)The carmaker created by the Nazis to create show cars for white aryan families  is scapegoating the software engineers for its current emissions woes.

VW’s Michael Horn told the US Congress that the decision to install the emission cheating software was all the work of a couple of software engineers.

Apparently the board was not aware that the testing cheating software which allowed it to cheat emissions were installed. The software engineers snuck into the production chain and convinced everyone one to install it using their impressive mind control techniques.

Normally you would not expect a company executive to pull off a stunt like this, but apparently someone pointed out that most US politicians don't believe in climate change or evolution so they are probably stupid enough to believe in anything.

That did not really work last time. The issue of defeat devices at VW has been a historic problem.

In 1974, VW had a run-in with US authorities regarding the use of defeat devices in 1974, and in December 2014 it recalled cars to address nox emissions.”

More than 530,000 cars in the US will need to be recalled for significant engine modifications, not a software fix. Only 80,000 Passats are eligible for the software fix.

There is no word on the effects these modifications will have on the cars’ performance, fuel consumption, etc.

Amazon lets punters build apps on its cloud

Posted: 09 Oct 2015 12:17 AM PDT

AmazonAmazon’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services, has launched a service to help customers build applications to connect devices through the cloud.

It is all part of the “Internet of Things” idea which has put the cloud in a central place in developers’ thinking.

The service, called “AWS IoT”, will allow factory floors, vehicles, health care systems, household appliances among other “things” to connect through cloud services, a spokesAmazon said.

Amazon’s Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels said at a company event in Las Vegas that the beta version of the service is now available,

The connection to the cloud will be fast and lightweight, making it a good fit for devices that have limited memory, processing power, or battery life, Amazon said.

Technology firms including Google, Intel, Cisco, Samsung  and Vodafone and Verizon are betting heavily on the relatively new technology to drive revenue and profit in the future. However they really need a cloud system behind it all to make it go.

Microsoft also launched an IoT suite last week.

Amazon said  there were no minimum fees for AWS IoT and customers using the service will have to only pay for what they use.

The prices will be determined on the number of messages, defined by Amazon as a 512-byte block of data, exchanged between devices and AWS IoT.

Amazon said it would offer customers 250,000 free messages per month, for 12 months. Prices start at $5 for every million messages, the company said.

Fortune reported on Monday that Amazon planned to announce a cloud-based service for the “Internet of Things”.

 

Apple finds more malware in its App store

Posted: 09 Oct 2015 12:16 AM PDT

bugAfter lecturing the world about how its autocratic controls protect users from malware, Apple has been forced to pull apps from its app store because of… er… malware.

Jobs' Mob has admitted that it had removed “a few” applications from its App Store, expressing its concern that the security of some users’ personal data could be compromised in certain circumstances.

The company said the apps threatened users’ security by installing certificates that can expose data to monitoring by third parties. The company did not specify the precise number of apps at issue and its standard defence against any major issue is that "it only effects as small number of users" even when it is most of the user base.

“Apple is deeply committed to protecting customer privacy and security. We are working closely with these developers to quickly get their apps back on the App Store, while ensuring customer privacy and security is not at risk.”

Apps with so-called root certificates route user data to servers where it can be analyzed. That opens the door for network providers to view encrypted traffic, leaving users vulnerable to data breaches.

One of the apps removed was Been Choice, which has attracted attention for its ability to block advertising in apps.

An Apple spokeswoman said the company would release a support page to help users remove the apps in question from their devices.

For years Apple fanboys have mocked Android users because the Google Play store was "full of malware." They claimed that Apple's ruthless censorship of apps to suit the needs and desires of the right-wing Bible belt was protecting them from malware.

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